


Livin La Vida Loca

by jonghyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, New York City, Reunions, friends meet again after many years, there's side xiuhan and henber, things happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonghyun/pseuds/jonghyun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not only can you experience love in different ways with different people as you get older, but you can also experience love in different ways with the same people.</p><p>Kris doesn't know how to make coffee and Chanyeol wants to go back to Korea. Life is hard for everyone. nyc!au</p>
            </blockquote>





	Livin La Vida Loca

**Author's Note:**

> this is for mischievousb, for exoforsichuan! :D I'M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG SWEETIE, I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> 
> and of course, an [lj mirror](http://semecomplex.livejournal.com/28052.html) for those who want it.
> 
> edit: i never included this in the author's note, but because this is my personal favorite fic, i figured i should keep it:
> 
> one of the things that really inspired and got this fic going was this quote that someone in my writing class blurted out while we were discussing whether your first love is most true form (of love) or if it's just naivety. this guy i never paid attention to two rows to the left and behind me said, "not only can you experience love in different ways with different people as you get older, but you can also experience love in different ways with the same people," and four years later, i still think about this quote a lot.

This is the biography of Kris Wu; He was born on November 6, 1990. He lived. The End.

It’s a Wednesday. It’s a Wednesday and Kris is on his way to work and Kris hates going to work on Wednesdays because Wednesdays are a black void of despair because it’s stuck in the middle of the week which means its the farthest day from the previous weekend and the upcoming weekend.

Kris also hates using the subway at ass o’clock, because he’d been called in early for some _emergency_ with the upcoming deadline, which means one of the new interns probably messed something up and Kris isn’t going to know who it is so he’ll end up directing his anger at everyone.

It’s right in the middle of rush hour, and he feels great contempt and hatred for the world when he’s shoved against the back wall of the subway. There are two school girls standing a few meters away from him giggling and giving him occasional glances. Either his shirt is on backwards or they’re trying to sneak in a stalker picture of him to show their friends and gush about the really hot businessman they saw on the subway today.

He sighs. There’s at least six more stops to go until he gets to where he needs to be, and the subway car is only getting more and more crowded. Someone bumps into him again, and Kris spots short black hair quickly sliding past him before an accented, “Sorry,” comes out, and Kris smiles sympathetically. He stops when the schoolgirls start to squeal.

The subway car slides to a stop, and his shoulders sag with relief when all of the students start to pile out. Stuyvesant is nearby, Kris knows; he went to school there for a year before he moved back to Korea.

He finally has breathing space with all of the students gone, and now with nothing to glare at, he takes out his phone to dully note the time. It’s much earlier than it should be, and as Kris slides his phone back into his pocket, he notes the man with the accented voice from before. It’s a distinctly Korean accent — Kris would know after spending hours making business calls between Korea, China, and America. After years of having to interchange languages between phone calls — sentences, even — Kris can say he’s pretty good at telling where each person is from.

The other man is staring out the window as the subway car starts to pick up again, and as he turns around to look at the rest of the car, Kris is hit with an intense feeling of deja vu. That’s not normal.

He’s almost as tall as Kris is, which is already a rarity in itself, and has short black hair and large ears. When he turns around completely, Kris is welcomed with a set of big eyes and pink lips and a face that looks entirely like—

“Chanyeol?” Kris finds himself asking, and the guy with the accent perks up, and it dawns on Kris that, shit, that _is_ Chanyeol.

He looks around the subway car, eyes wide, before they finally settle on Kris, and there is a long, silent moment where Chanyeol stares at him, with the vaguest bit of recognition in his eyes, like he knows Kris from _somewhere_ , but isn’t sure where or when. Then, finally, his eyes widen even more, and the low register of his voice almost makes Kris jump when he asks tentatively, “Yifan?”

Yifan. He hasn’t heard that name in a very long time. The last time someone called him Yifan was in his first year of college, when he met a pretty Chinese girl named Song Qian, the only person who had been able to pronounce his name correctly amongst the fluent English speakers.

Then again, freshmen year of university was also the last time he spoke to Chanyeol.

“I—” Kris tries to find the muddled words in his head, if there are any words, and comes up with a stutter instead.

“Oh my god,” Chanyeol says in Korean, “it’s really you, isn’t it? Wu Yifan?”

 _Long time no see_ would probably be the cooler, more suave answer. Instead, Kris goes for, “What are you doing here?” and sounds like a dick.

It shows on Chanyeol’s face, because the spark in his eyes dies a little, and Kris hates himself a bit more for that. “I work in sales management for a Korean-Chinese company,” he says. “I’ve been transferred to the branch in New York City. Today is supposed to be my first day.”

Kris stares at him, brain still cloudy and way past overdrive, lost somewhere between mild hysteria and shutdown. “I work for a Korean-Chinese company,” he mumbles. “I’m the head of the telecommunications department.”

“No way,” Chanyeol breathes. “Is it the same company? Have we been working for the same company all this time and never known?”

Kris gulps and takes a look down at his watch. There’s still at least twenty minutes until his stop comes, and realizes that that’s probably Chanyeol’s stop too.

It turns out they do, except in completely different departments on different floors, and now that Kris’ brain has processed the fact that, yes, Park Chanyeol, _that_ Park Chanyeol, the one Kris was best friends with in high school, is here in New York, standing right in front of him, he has no idea what to do.

“How’s everything?” Kris asks. “I mean, when did we lose contact? Somewhere between freshmen and sophomore year of college, right?”

Chanyeol nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, sometime before our birthdays, I think.” He laughs, and Kris can’t tell if it’s a bitter laugh or a nostalgic one. “I remember staring at the calendar on your birthday, y’know? But we hadn’t talked in a while then, so I didn’t know if it would be awkward or not to send you an e-mail.”

“E-mail,” Kris breathes. “Wow, that was a long time ago.”

Kris remembers Chanyeol’s birthday that year too. Song Qian had broken up with him that day, and his roommates were out, so it was just him, alone in their dorm, considering calling Chanyeol up and crying to him over the phone. They hadn’t spoken since August though, and Kris tries to pretend that that isn’t creepy at all, remembering the last time they spoke.

After Kris went to college in America, he lost touch with almost everyone back home. His family had packed up their bags and moved to New York with him, so there was no need to visit Korea. If they visited relatives, it was in China.

“Yeah, now we have Facebook for everything,” Chanyeol says sagely, then jokes, “Man, I should have Facebook stalked you,” and Kris grins at him brightly.

“You wouldn’t have found me,” Kris says, “I’ve gotten my name legally changed. It’s Kris Wu now.”

“Kris Wu?” Chanyeol echoes, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t like it.”

"I chose it myself," Kris says, feeling slightly put out. "I like it. What about you? Why are you here in New York, in advertisement of all things. Last time I heard, you were a music major, and you wanted to be a rockstar."

Chanyeol shrugs and runs a hand through his hair. Kris remembers their sophomore year of high school, when Chanyeol tried to dye his hair orange and was left with a bright yellow spot on the top of his head. He'd dragged Kris to his house that day, and they dyed his hair to a dark brown in his yard to hide the evidence. His hair used to be long and floppy and always get in his eyes, and Kris would always push it back out of his face.

"Time caught up, I guess," Chanyeol sighs. "One day I was eighteen, the next I was twenty two with a degree."

Time. What an interesting concept. It's never quite where you want it to be.

Kris frowns. Speaking of time—

"This is our stop," he says to Chanyeol and grabs his wrist quickly to pull him out of the subway car.

"Do you normally do that?" Chanyeol asks when they're out of the subway and walking down Seventh Avenue.

"Do what?"

"The whole hand-grabbing thing. It's like something I'd watch in a drama."

Huh. Kris hadn't even noticed. He looks down, and their hands aren't touching now, but now that he thinks about it, he _had_ grabbed Chanyeol's arm to tug him along. “Oh,” he mumbles, trying to feign ignorance. “Not usually, but then again, I don’t usually have anyone to lead around New York?”

Good enough. Chanyeol grins at him and bumps their knuckles together. “Definitely something I’d watch in a drama. You haven’t changed a bit, Yifan.”

 _My name is Kris_ , he wants to say, but his knuckles burn, and the flare travels through his veins to the tips of his body, and he feels frozen in place under Chanyeol’s smile.

 _Not this, please not this_ , Kris begs. High school romances are supposed to die where they’re made — in high school.

His hand still burns though, and Chanyeol seems as if he knows exactly where he’s going, so Kris stays a few feet behind him, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart.

He remembers the day him and a bunch of their friends, Chanyeol included, went down to the beach. He remembers how the waves rolled after each other, how he and Chanyeol threw sand in each other’s faces and hit their beach ball so hard it popped, and he remembers the feeling of Chanyeol’s skin under his as he covered his body in sand, and how Chanyeol laughed and yelled _I’m a sand angel!_ and how they complained about there being more sand in their sandwiches than bread.

What he remembers the most though, is the ride home, where Chanyeol and Kris had been squished together in the back seat uncomfortably, Kris against the window, and Chanyeol pressed up against his arm.

They said nothing on the way back, didn’t even look at each other, but Kris remembers the way Chanyeol took his hand in his and laced their fingers together, quietly, and looked away. Kris didn’t look back either, and instead watched as the sun soaked up the colored sky until the moon took its place.

 

Nervous. That’s how he felt. He and Chanyeol had walked up until the doors of the corporate building, and then Chanyeol was ushered off by someone Kris never met, and he vaguely remembers promising to take Chanyeol out for lunch later.

 

The first few hours of work went by between increments of extremely slow and extremely fast. It wasn’t until a quarter until his break when Lu Han, a friend slash colleague of his, burst into his office.

“You have Angsty Main Character Syndrome, what’s going on? You scared away poor Luna, you know? She looked like she was going to burst into tears when she ran into me.”

“She organized all my files backwards,” Kris groans. Lu Han laughs at him when he slumps down in his chair, and repeats for emphasis, “ _Backwards_ , Lu Han.”

“It’s her first day on the job,” Lu Han says, and pats him on the back in consolation. “She’s still learning how to speak Cantonese.”

“Then why is she _here_ ,” Kris grits out, and Lu Han gives him another sneaky smile before jumping backwards to sit on his desk. Kris sighs.

“I heard about our new Korean transfer,” Lu Han continues, as if Kris hasn’t spoken before, and crosses his legs. Kris scoffs. What is this, high school? Then he immediately takes that thought back. “Park Chanyeol, right? He’s been quite the talk. He’s so _happy_ , it makes me happy. I like him.”

“Great.”

“ _And_ ,” Lu Han says wickedly, “Mr. Happy Pants has some history with Mr. Not So Happy Pants.”

Kris suddenly feels the need to loosen his tie, or maybe fan himself. “You’re implying something that I don’t li—”

“A lot of history, in fact,” Lu Han states. “Like, enough to fill up all of your years of high school.”

“Did Chanyeol just _tell_ you all this?”

“And you call him Chanyeol! Not Mr. Park. There’s only one other person you call by their name, and that’s me.”

Kris sighs. This has been a very long day so far. “Please cut to the point. What do you want?”

Lu Han shifts closer so that his calf is touching Kris’ knee. It makes him feel uncomfortable, like Lu Han can read his emotions by touching him. “You look really uncomfortable,” Lu Han says, smiling. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“A bit.”

“Good.” Lu Han has a very punchable looking face; Kris wonders how big the repercussions would be if he just reeled his arm back and— “I’ll be seeing you then.”

Kris blinks. “What?”

Lu Han shrugs. “Did you think I was going to interrogate you on your love life with Chanyeol?”

“Sort of?”

“Nah,” Lu Han says pleasantly. “We’re getting there though, don’t worry.”

“Oh I won’t,” Kris mutters. “Now please leave, there’s a report I have to read over.”

Lu Han slides off of his desk easily; his polished shoes make a slight tapping sound as they hit the floor. It irritates Kris. “Whatever you say, boss.”

 _I’m not your boss_ , Kris wants to say, but Lu Han’s already left the room. His exit is silent, and that scares Kris a lot, because Lu Han usually walks out of his office making embarrassing noises or yelling something that could get either of them fired. Lu Han only ever leaves his office quietly when he’s sad. Or when he’s plotting something.

Kris barely manages to read through half of the report when there’s a knock on his door, and he has to physically restrain himself from groaning aloud. “Come in,” he calls, not bothering to look up. The report isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, but then again, whoever’s coming in now will probably be more boring.

He’s wrong, of course.

It’s almost embarrassing how wrong he is when Chanyeol tiptoes in, then shuts the door behind him. “Um,” he mumbles, “hi? Baekhyun told me you had lunch now, so.”

Lunch? Kris takes one look at the time and nearly screams. How the hell is it one already? He was supposed to be done with this report and writing up a new proposal an hour ago. He blames Lu Han.

“Now looks like a bad time, huh?”

Kris at least has the decency to look guilty. “I’m sorry Chanyeol, I just—”

“Don’t worry about it!” Chanyeol says, grinning. It’s not a happy grin. “I should probably try to make friends anyway. Take care!”

He exits before Kris can say anything, and as soon as the door shuts, he lets out what he thinks is a well deserved groan. This is all definitely Lu Han’s fault.

 

Kris in the office, Lu Han will say, is very different from Kris outside the office. Kris in the office has polished suits and a glare that freezes interns where they stand. Kris outside the office is a pushover who buys bread from the street vendor on 6th Avenue and 58th Street to feed the pigeons in the park.

Kris only knows this because he walks in on Lu Han telling all this to Chanyeol.

“His apartment is very modern and has a minimalistic feel to it, but he’s got this guest room which is disgustingly different, really. It’s all pastel colored and it has a _window seat_ , and the bed has all these stuffed animals that he claims is because his mom likes it, and—”

“Having fun talking about me?”

Lu Han doesn’t bat an eyelash, but Chanyeol jumps in his seat, looking very much like he’s just been caught with his hand down the cookie jar. “Lots, actually,” Lu Han says. “I was keeping your boyfriend company while you finished up your stupid proposal. Is it done yet?”

“Yes,” Kris replies, sighing. “You are the worst secretary _ever_. And he’s not my boyfriend.”

Chanyeol’s nails must be very interesting, the way he’s looking at them now. Almost eight years of separation haven’t changed him at all. His habits haven’t changed at all, and a sort of warm fuzz bubbles up inside of him. It feels like home.

“That’s just because I’m not your secretary,” Lu Han retorts. “Oh, and, since you wouldn’t, I decided to make the decision to invite Chanyeol out for drinks on Saturday.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Lu Han shrugs. “I didn’t invite you, I invited him on your behalf.”

Kris groans. “That’s— You sure about that, Chanyeol? Lu Han’s really nasty when he’s drunk. He curses a lot and gets very personal.”

Lu Han pats him on the back. “Kris is a very good drinking partner.”

Chanyeol smiles up at them. “Yeah!” he says, and Kris pretends not to notice how the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “No problem. I’m actually curious as to what you’re like drunk, Yifan.”

Kris doesn’t bother to correct Chanyeol this time. “You shouldn’t be, I’m not very exciting.”

“He’s not,” Lu Han agrees with a solemn nod, “but that’s also because I know all of his secrets.”

Kris scowls.

 

They don’t go out that day, but he does promise Chanyeol to take him out for lunch in Central Park the next day. “It’s a New York classic,” he says as they come out of the subway on Columbus Circle. “My friends dragged me out here when I first came to America, so now I’m taking you.”

“It’s not even lunch anymore,” Chanyeol says. “Are we going to even get back to the office in time?”

 _Definitely not_ , Kris thinks, but he won’t tell Chanyeol that. He figures he can use his seniority card for the first time to let Chanyeol off. At most, they’ll be anywhere from half an hour to an hour late anyway. Which is a lot of time, now that he thinks about it, but it’s also too late to turn back.

Chanyeol lays out the blanket on a stone bed, and Kris puts the food down off towards the side. It’s not that far from the entrance, but far enough for a decent walk. Even though it’s a Thursday afternoon, there’s still a handful of school children running around. A golden retriever off of its leash bounds up to Chanyeol at one point and shoves his head onto his lap. Chanyeol laughs and waves him off, and ends up having his sandwich thrown in four different directions. One flustered college student and a laughing Chanyeol later, Kris is laughing alongside him as the dog is tugged away.

“She was cute!” Chanyeol exclaims as he gives the college girl a final wave.

Kris raises his eyebrows. “Who? The dog or the girl?”

Chanyeol grins. “Both, obviously. But the dog moreso.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s not that she’s not pretty!” Chanyeol says, “She’s just not my type?”

Kris takes a look at his own gyro and hands it to Chanyeol. He’s not hungry anymore, and Chanyeol’s food has been stolen by a dog, anyway. That’s a story to tell. “What’s your type?” he asks, hopefully nonchalantly. He’s not interested, of course not. This is just catching up with an old friend. Now that he thinks about it, the only girl Chanyeol’s ever claimed to have interest in is that one pop star who used to be really famous back when they were in high school. What was her name? Eugene from S.E.S. or something. Oh right, that was it.

Summer of 2002, the year that S.E.S’ _Just a Feeling_ plagued each radio station. Kris still remembers Chanyeol pretending to be Bada and swaying his hips in the least attractive way possible. He’d threatened to tell everyone about Kris’ secret stash of VCRs if he didn’t try to dance with him at least one, and Kris, never one to let his reputation tarnish, told Chanyeol he might as well tell. Junior year of high school is not an odd time to find out Kris watches porn.

Chanyeol didn’t tell. In fact, he begged Kris to let him see, and then threw the bag of tapes back at him the next day like it was drugs and yelled, _that’s_ disgusting _! Who the hell wants to watch that?_

Kris wonders if he still thinks that, and realizes that’s probably a stupid question.

“My type?” Chanyeol asks. “I don’t think I have one. Wait, no, Scarlet Johansson is really hot.”

“You _would_ ,” Kris accuses. “You’ve always had a thing for redheads.”

“She’s _blonde_ ,” Chanyeol snaps. He throws a piece of bread at a duck that’s been circling them suspiciously. It squawks angrily before realizing there’s food, picks it up, and leaves. Chanyeol takes a bite of Kris’ gyro then, and splutters. “This is so salty! And it’s bland.”

“That’s how I like it,” Kris mumbles.

“What happened to the Yifan I know who ate spicy ddeokbeokki like a pro?” Chanyeol demands. “Even I couldn’t eat it as spicy as you.”

“There aren’t many spicy things in America,” Kris says, shrugging. “Not as spicy as in Korea, at least.”

Chanyeol looks much more horrified than he should, really. It’s just food.

Kris’ mother would have hit him on the head for thinking that. So would Chanyeol’s. Maybe that’s why. “We are going to fix this problem,” Chanyeol says firmly. “I’m going to make something super spicy and you’re going to eat it.”

Kris laughs. “You can’t even cook, Chanyeol.”

“Years of living by yourself will change that,” Chanyeol states. Then he amends, “I had this really awesome roommate in college named Kyungsoo — he’s one of my best friends today — he taught me everything I know about cooking. But he was amazing. So! I, being the amazing friend I am, am going to pass down these godly cooking secrets to you.”

Kris wonders if he looks as unimpressed as he feels. “Will you really?”

“No,” Chanyeol laughs. “But I will flaunt them in your face and make you eat my food.”

“You’re a great friend.”

“Of course I am,” Chanyeol says, and stands up, showing Kris the empty gyro wrapper. “We should head back now.”

It doesn’t hit Kris until he’s back in his office that Kyungsoo was his _best_ friend. Who’s Kyungsoo? His roommate, he said, back in Korea. When did they meet? What is he like? Does he wrap his arm around Chanyeol’s neck and pull him in a headlock like Kris used to? Does he let Chanyeol sleep on his shoulder during school breaks like Kris used to? It’s illogical to think that he could still be best friends with Chanyeol after at least five years of separation, but his chest hurts all the same.

 

“You are literally forty five minutes late,” Lu Han says as he walks — no, _frolicks_ — into Kris’ office. “And you came back with _Chanyeol_. What did you do?”

“We ate at Central Park.”

Lu Han stares at him. “Really?"

"Really."

"Why did you go all the way up to Central Park? You could’ve just went to the High Line or something. Even DUMBO is closer, you dumbass.”

Kris shrugs. “It’s more well known.”

“Missionary is more well known, doesn’t mean it’s the best sex position,” Lu Han says, like that’s supposed to prove anything aside from the fact that Kris knows way too much about his sex life.

Kris levels him with his best professional stare. “You’re clearly not scolding me, so why are you here?”

“I’m mad at your awful wooing skills. _Central Park_ , literally the biggest cliche there is to New York, aside from the Empire State Building. Please don’t take him up there, I beg you. On that note, don’t take a shopping spree to Fifth Avenue either, no one besides you has an interest in buying a seventy dollar wifebeater. I should just plan out your entire life, while I’m at it.”

“I’m not _wooing_ him. We’re old friends catching up.”

“What kind of old friend goes through the effort of going all the way to Central Park just to have a picnic? When was the last time you had a picnic?”

“That’s beside the point,” Kris says, even though it’s definitely not. “Why not get all the cliches out of the way first?”

Lu Han stares at him. “For Chanyeol’s sake, I hope you really aren’t wooing him.”

Kris frowns. That’s not very nice. Kris is great at wooing people. Granted, he hasn’t had much people to woo, because he hasn’t been attracted to many people. His face is nice enough, admittedly. He’s has his fair share of one night stands, but Kris doesn’t really have to do much aside from stand there with a drink.

So maybe he is a little out of practice with this whole courtship thing, but it doesn’t matter because he’s _not_ wooing Park Chanyeol.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” he asks after a pause.

Lu Han shrugs. “I finished early.”

“You’re Minseok’s _secretary_ ,” Kris says. “How did you finish?”

Lu Han smiles pleasantly. “One day you’ll have a secretary as efficient as me. Until then, I guess I’ll do some extra work.”

Kris wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t want to know what ‘extra work’ is, because it definitely has nothing to do with organizing his schedule or answering calls or marking down meetings. And Soojung is a _great_ secretary. Hundreds of times better than Lu Han, probably.

There’s a knock on the door, and Soojung comes strolling in, a couple of packets in her arms. She gives Lu Han a smile and places them on Kris’ desk. “There are the folders you asked for a couple of hours ago.” She fixes him with a hard look as she says, “I tried to give them to you earlier, but you weren’t in your office.” Lu Han snickers in the background.

“Thank you, Soojung,” Kris mumbles.

“I was wrong,” Lu Han says, “I’m second best, after Soojung. Isn’t that right?”

She looks like she’s about to make a smart comment before thinking better of it and laughs. “I do my job well,” she says.

“I’m sure you do,” Lu Han says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go talk about Kris behind his back.”

He stares down at the stacks of portfolios sitting on his desk as Soojung and Lu Han leaves and sighs. She’s almost _too_ good.

 

Friday mornings is one of the most mundane parts of the week. The girls on the subway (two of the the girls are named Melissa and Sonia, he learned last night) have early lacrosse practice on Friday mornings, so they’re not even there to entertain Kris in some weird masochistic way. He shrugs. They’re not that bad. He doesn’t exactly mind being eye candy, as long as they keep their distance.

Still. The subway ride this time is long and boring, and there’s not even that homeless person in the station that Kris always gives his leftover change to when he plays some awful rendition of Jason Mraz. He has nice stories to tell, when Kris bothers listening.

He almost never runs into Chanyeol when he works, except for once when Soojung calls in sick for the first time in her three year career and Kris has to walk around the building and find out where the coffee machine is himself. It’s down on the fifth floor. Why? Because someone is out to get Kris, because he _hates_ walking to the fifth floor, because the stairs are shady and there’s distorted colors on the floor and wall that shouldn’t be there and Kris doesn’t want to know how they got there because this is an _office building_.

Unlike Kris, Chanyeol actually seems to know how to work the machine.

“Have you never made yourself coffee before?” he asks, and Kris at least has the decency to look guilty.

“There’s a Starbucks at the corner of the block I live on,” he admits, and Chanyeol actually _judges_ him. He never did that in high school. Usually, it was the opposite.

 

He remembers one day, in their sophomore year of high school, their school had gotten their very first computer lab in the middle of the library. It only had about five computers in it, and they were the big block Dell monitors that took ten minutes to start up. Nonetheless, it was the gem of the school, and no one ever missed a chance to stay after school and play _Flight Simulator 2000_ until they got kicked off or until the computer manually shut down.

Kris, admittedly, played a lot. Chanyeol had half the attention span he did, so after awhile he would give up and give the joystick to Kris ( _Yifan_ , back then), who would try to land the plane correctly. Out of all the years they had that game, he maybe did it successfully about two or three times.

One day, he’d be on the computer for a long time, and Chanyeol, after getting tired of pestering him, finally tugged on his sleeves and whispered, “Yifan, watch out! The aliens!”

Kris stared at him, sort of in the same way Chanyeol is staring at him now.

“The aliens!” Chanyeol said again, and leaped behind a bookshelf. Kris stared at him blankly, until Chanyeol waved him over and Kris pointed at himself questioningly. Chanyeol, losing patience, nodded furiously and beamed when Kris got up. He took his time making his way over, and almost didn’t crouch down next to Chanyeol until he pulled at his pant leg.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“We’re hiding from the aliens,” Chanyeol said, as if that was obvious. “We have to defend Earth.”

“Are you five?”

Chanyeol glared at him, then cocked an invisible space gun. “Do you want to die? Come on.” And so Kris followed.

They played invisible Space Raiders, in the middle of the high school library as the other students stared at them. One of them even cheered them on and shouted _The aliens are behind you, duck!_

That was always Chanyeol’s charm. Anyone could do anything, no matter how old or young they were. Was it silly? Of course it was, but who cared when you’ve never had this much fun before?

 

Now, Chanyeol, the twenty-six year old man standing before him making coffee has a much different charm that Kris doesn't know how to stomach. He’s taking care of _Kris_ , a twenty-eight year old man who’s been in this office for at least five more years than Chanyeol has. And he knows how to make coffee.

“I can’t believe you’ve never made yourself coffee,” Chanyeol says incredulously, and Kris wants to respond _You didn’t even know that flying squirrels couldn’t actually fly_ , but that sounds kind of stupid, so Kris keeps his mouth shut. “How did you survive through college?”

“Starbucks,” Kris replies meekly. “Have you seen my college?”

Chanyeol snorts and hands him a steaming cup. “I don’t want to see what pretentious American college you went to.”

“NYU is not that pretentious,” Kris defends as he takes a sip. His eyes widen. “This is really sweet,” he says, and tries to act like that isn’t exactly how he likes his coffee. His voice gives him away.

“You’re not the only one who hasn’t changed much,” Chanyeol says, and Kris stands there in the breakroom, long after Chanyeol dismisses himself. It feels like a punch to his stomach, and he doesn’t know why.

 

Saturdays are usually nice. Kris doesn’t have work on the weekends, unless someone screws with his schedule, which has happened a grand total of twice ever since Soojung started working under him. Before that, Kris was usually in every Saturday, and sometimes Sundays.

On Saturdays he goes jogging in Central Park in a t-shirt and sweatpants in the morning as the latest rap songs blare through his iPod.

Maybe his life is a cliche, he thinks as he buys a hot dog from the same street vendor with an extra piece of bread. He’s already eaten breakfast, but he loves tossing bits of bread at the pigeons and watching them waddle over and fly away with a piece.

“Lu Han was right, you really are a lot less cool than you look,” someone says behind him, and Kris jumps. A couple of the pigeons scatter at the sudden movement.

“You scared them all away,” Kris mumbles.

Chanyeol ignores him. “I’m glad I already knew you were really uncool, because that would’ve been a huge letdown.

“What are you doing here?”

“Exploring,” Chanyeol says. “I figured Central Park was a great place to start.”

“I already showed you Central Park,” Kris replies, a little wounded. “Why do you need to go there again?”

“I said it was a good starting point,” Chanyeol says again. “Easy location. Everyone knows where Central Park is.”

Kris doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. Lu Han would probably hate them both right now. “Bread?” he asks, holding out half a piece of hotdog bread out.

Chanyeol laughs as he takes a piece. His eyes crinkle up at the edges and his gums show, along with the shiniest, whitest set of teeth Kris has ever seen.

If Kris had to choose a favorite mouth, it would be Chanyeol’s. His lips are the most perfect shade of rosy pink, and they look so _soft_ , Kris wouldn’t mind kissing them.

He’s hit with the sudden realization that Chanyeol doesn’t know he’s gay.

Chanyeol seems to be oblivious to his internal freak out as he rips off pieces of bread and throws them near the ducks. To be fair, Kris himself hadn’t come out of the closet until spring of his junior year of college, and even then, he didn’t have much dating experience until his senior year. Most people could never get past his face, and those that got too caught up accused Kris of having no personality. His longest relationship was with a German boy named Michael two years after he graduated, which lasted a grand total of six months.

“Hey, you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” Chanyeol says, waving a hand over his face. Kris blinks furiously, then stares at Chanyeol blankly, like he’s not really there. “Anything wrong?”

Kris pauses. Takes a deep breath. Opens his mouth.

“I think I left the stove on.”

 

“You told him _what_?” Lu Han gasps, later that evening.

“I blanked. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

If Kris didn’t already feel stupid, the way Lu Han is staring at him now would have done the job. “You’re buying me a drink,” he says. “To make up for how stupid you are.”

 

He doesn’t even know why he actually does buy Lu Han a drink. At this rate, they’ll get inebriated before Chanyeol even shows up. Maybe if he gets drunk enough, he’ll pass out and forget everything. He frowns. Twenty-eight is probably too old to drink yourself into a blackout.

He orders another beer anyway.

Chanyeol comes about fifteen minutes later, apologizing about how he took the wrong subway train. They move from the club bar to a booth in the far back, and Lu Han invites Yixing, another one of Yifan’s friends from college.

“How are you liking New York so far?”

“Exactly how I imagined it,” Chanyeol says. “Like it was taken right out of a movie.”

Lu Han shakes his head and thrusts a drink into Chanyeol’s hand. “That just means you’ve only seen the superficial side. Where are you staying?”

“I have a pretty small flat in Chelsea,” Chanyeol mumbles, bringing the glass to his lips.

“That’s pretty close to Lu Han,” Kris says. “He lives in Greenwich. I live in Upper West Side.”

“We’ll have super secret parties without him,” Lu Han fake whispers, and Kris groans before calling the waiter over for another round of drinks. Something tells him this night is a bad idea.

 

He knew going out for drinks with Lu Han was a bad idea. Doing anything with Lu Han is a bad idea. Lu Han is one giant bad idea, really.

Kris is about way past drunk right now, and leaning on Chanyeol’s shoulder and giggling. There’s a piece of white fluff on Chanyeol’s jacket and it’s really distracting. Chanyeol is pretty distracting himself. He’s changed so much since high school. He’s lost most of the baby fat in his cheeks, as well as the round glasses he used to wear. Kris grins to himself. He used to call him Harry Potter.

“Are you okay, Yifan?” Chanyeol asks. Kris can feel the rumble of his voice through their bodies.

“He’s a touchy drunk,” Lu Han calls out from across the table, where he's getting up to get to the dance floor. Yixing, who arrived around two hours ago, gives Chanyeol what he thinks is a sympathetic glance and follows Lu Han. “He’ll be okay.”

“I’m… fine,” he slurs. He feels great, actually.

He hasn’t drank in a really long time, so he’s probably out of practice with this spacing out thing because he grabs the next beer that’s placed on the table by a smiley waitress. “I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Chanyeol says, grabbing the bottle from him.

Kris watches his hand as the bottle is taken away, and ends up staring at Chanyeol’s face again. "Your ears," he says, lifting himself off of Chanyeol's shoulder. "They're the same."

"Are they really?" Chanyeol touches them subconsciously. "I mean, I haven't changed them or anything, but—"

"It's good," Kris mumbles. "I like them. I like that you haven't changed that much."

Chanyeol grins and drinks the beer Kris was supposed to have. "I like you," he admits, after draining most of the bottle. "I liked you, I mean."

"What?"

"Back in high school," Chanyeol confesses, looking sheepish. Kris wonders if he's only saying this because they're both drunk, although Kris moreso than Chanyeol. Maybe he thinks Kris won't remember anything in the morning. "I sort of...really liked you. Almost in a worshipping kind of way. I thought you were really cool, y'know? My best friend, captain of the basketball team, the ones all the girls — and some guys — loved."

Kris doesn't register any of that. "You're... You're _gay_?"

Chanyeol flushes. "I'm bi, actually. I broke up with my last girlfriend before I came to America. Surprise?"

Kris laughs happily. He's not sure why. Chanyeol looks confused. "I'm gay," he says after a moment.

There's a long, pregnant pause, in which Chanyeol stares at Kris, mouth open, and Kris grabs Lu Han's long forgotten glass to get rid of the awkward atmosphere. He's already wasted, might as well go all the way, right?

"Do you want to dance?" he asks, because _that's_ a sure-fire way to make everything five times worse.

Instead, Chanyeol laughs. "Can you even dance? The Yifan I know can't."

Kris makes a face at him and downs Lu Han's drink. It tastes like vodka and something else. "You don't need to know how to dance to dance at a club."

He almost thinks Chanyeol is about to turn him down, especially since he's infinitely more sober than Kris is, but he gets up anyway and holds out his hand for Kris.

The moment Kris stands up, the world spins for a moment before Chanyeol's hand is on Kris' back, and he's looking at him worriedly. "Are you sure you're okay? Let's stay here."

"I haven't been clubbing in a long time," Kris whines. "I'll be fine. You're here, right?"

Chanyeol taking care of Kris feels weird, because he remembers how back in high school, it used to be the other way around. Kris used to joke and tell Chanyeol that he cared for his guitar more than he cared for himself, and that it was Kris' job to look after Chanyeol.

"You're a big baby," Chanyeol groans, but leads Kris down the stairs of the club to the dance floor. Kris' dancing, has not, in fact, gotten any better since high school. In fact, it's probably gotten worse. In an effort to hide this tiny, insignificant fact, he wraps his arms around Chanyeol's neck and stays close, breathing hot into his ear.

"If this were anyone else," Chanyeol says, cheek rubbing against his, "This would be the moment I'd ask if they wanted to leave." Kris can feel the scratchy outline of stubble against his jaw, and that's just as distracting.

"We just got here," Kris says.

Chanyeol doesn't say anything back, and Kris wonders if he's missed the point.

Being like this feels nice, and Kris doesn’t want to decide if he’s feeling this way because he’s drunk as hell or because he actually feels nice. Both probably aren’t very good options, and when he’s sober he’ll hate himself. But right now, Chanyeol smells like expensive cologne, which Kris likes, and pretends not to think about how Chanyeol would probably taste nice, too.

“We’re dancing a little slow for this song,” Chanyeol murmurs into Kris’ ear, and fuck, that feels _really_ nice.

Kris groans. “I’m too drunk to move any quicker.”

Chanyeol pulls away from him, and Kris tries to pretend he didn’t move forward with him. “You should probably get home, then,” he says. “You’re… I think you’re really drunk?”

“I am,” he admits. “But this is nice; I don’t want to leave.”

Chanyeol laughs. “Tough luck. Come on.” He pulls Kris along with him, back towards the booth they were sitting at. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Phone. Give me. I don’t have Lu Han or Yixing’s numbers.”

Kris hands it over quietly, and watches as Chanyeol punches in a _This is Chanyeol! ^^ Kris is staying with me for the night, so don’t worry~ :D_

“Are you really twenty-six?” he asks, wobbling. Chanyeol shoves his phone into Kris’ pocket and shoots him a glare.

“Come on,” he says, pulling Kris’ arm over his shoulders, and Kris doesn’t know why he follows.

 

Kris’ apartment is definitely not this bright, he thinks when he wakes up the next morning. He’s also not in his own clothing. Or his bed. Or his room. What the fuck?

He gets up, groaning at the shift in perspective, and the resulting pounding in his head. He must have drank last night, because hangovers come rather easily to Kris Wu. Some exchange for his excruciatingly good looks. Lu Han would hit him if he heard that.

His first thought is that this is another one night stand he’s managed to rope himself into, but he hates going to other strangers’ houses. And they usually don’t give him their clothes to change into. He’s wearing a dull red shirt he doesn’t own, and black sweatpants he also doesn’t own. The walls are a pale yellow, and floor is an old, but polished wood. The clock says it’s a little past ten.

Once he picks himself off of the bed, he notices the pills and glass of water on the nightstand.

 _Hello Yifan!! You seemed pretty out of it last night, but don’t worry! You changed into the clothes yourself. You didn’t do much, aside from sing your self acclaimed amazing rendition of_ I Knew You Were Trouble. _It wasn’t bad, but I bet I could do better. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ I made you drink water, but probably not enough. Hope your hangovers aren’t too bad!_

_—Chanyeol_

Fuck. Of all things to sing drunk, why is it a teenage pop song? Last time he was out with Minseok and Henry and he belted out One Direction’s _What Makes You Beautiful_. At least Henry was also drunk enough to join him, but Henry likes that kind of thing.

At least it’s only Chanyeol.

Actually, where _is_ Chanyeol?

He makes his way out of the bedroom to the living room, to see Chanyeol sleeping on the couch, blanket pulled up to his nose. Despite the racket in his head, he smiles to himself. Chanyeol _does_ still wear glasses. They’re not round, but they’re still huge and thick-rimmed and cover half of his face.

His stomach rumbles. Since Chanyeol hasn’t woken up yet, he decides to take matters into his own hand and dig around the room for Chanyeol’s phone, since he can’t find his own.

 

“I thought you couldn’t cook,” Chanyeol mumbles.

Kris grins and looks up at Chanyeol’s recently awoken state. His glasses are lopsided on his face and there are tufts of hair sticking up in every direction. His chest presses up against Kris’ back, and he reaches back with a hand to pat Chanyeol on the head.

Some habits are hard to get rid of, but sleeping habits? Even harder. Kris doesn’t mind that. In fact, he likes it a lot. Kris likes taking care of people more than he likes being taken care of.

“I can’t,” he says. “So I ordered out. Do you like haejangguk?”

Kris can feel Chanyeol inhaling against his back. His head is resting on Kris’ shoulder, and he makes a content sound before smiling lazily. “Where did you order haejangguk from in America?”

Kris turns his head to meet Chanyeol’s dazed eyes. “Ktown?” he asks helpfully, and Chanyeol pouts, eyebrows furrowed together and bottom lip jutting out.

“What’s that?”

“Um,” Kris frowns, pouring some of the haejangguk into a bowl. “It’s a small area, just a few blocks long, that’s dominantly Korean? There’s an H-mart there, and a bunch of small Korean restaurants. It’s nice, I like it.” He doesn’t look at Chanyeol until he’s finished pouring the rest of the haejangguk into the second bowl, and when he does look at Chanyeol, he’s looking at him, eyes bright and glassy.

“Let’s go there,” he says.

 

Kris promises to take him there the next week. They spend the rest of the day together, lazing around in Chanyeol’s apartment, watching the TV shows Kris never bothered to. The TV in his apartment is mainly considered decor, except for when his family drops by. He has a niece-in-law who loves Sonic the Hedgehog and begs him to sit with her on the couch and watch together. All he knows is that there’s a Tails, a fox with two tails, and a... bat? Who wears clothes that shouldn’t be on a children’s show? It doesn’t seem to bother his niece though.

“Do all Americans do that?” Chanyeol asks, sometime after dinner, when they’re still huddled up on Chanyeol’s couch, watching B-list horror movies. Kris watches as a girl forgoes the ax lying by her foot to approach the warehouse to get a closer look at the wagon she saw tip over.

“The ones in horror movies do,” Kris says, and nearly a moment later, the door behind her slams shut, and there’s a scream before the scene changes. “Do all Koreans grab people’s arms as they walk across the street?”

“You did,” Chanyeol points out. “When we first met on the subway.”

“I’m not Korean,” he protests, but Chanyeol ignores him.

“Wu Yifan, straight out of a drama. Grabbing innocent bystander's hands and declaring his never ending love for them as the walk sign counts down.”

“I didn’t declare my never ending love for you.”

“Oh, you will,” Chanyeol says, nodding, as the guy on screen gets stabbed by the masked villain. “You’re that type.”

“You don’t even know if I like—”

“Guys?” Chanyeol finishes for him. “Last night. You mentioned it.”

Kris sighs and wraps himself up in the blanket. “I hoped you’d forget.”

Chanyeol shrugs. “You found out I’m bisexual. The world is weird like that.”

Kris laughs. It’s crazy how the people you thought you knew were nothing like you knew. The masked figure in the TV screen closes in on the protagonist’s best friend. “The world is crazy.”

Chanyeol turns to him and grins. “Look at us, living the crazy life.”

A scream punctuates the silence that follows.

 

Kris wishes the weekend was back. At least it isn’t a Wednesday. He hates Wednesdays.

But Wednesday is tomorrow, and today will probably be just as hectic as yesterday was. Even though Sonia, Melissa, and their other friend are huddled on the other side of the carriage, he can still hear them chatting happily from where he is. Something about Homecoming.

They get off at the next stop, and Kris busies himself with staring at his phone for updates on world events he has no interest in. The preparations for the winter Olympics held in Russia have begun, and there’s an online vote going on to see who the opening act should be. Kris isn’t particularly into Olympics — he mainly watches them in social outings, and he doesn’t really have much patriotism for his country. Or any of them. Things are sort of weird when you’re split between four different countries.

Kris was born in Guangzhou, roughly 28 years ago, and then shuttled off to Vancouver, where he was raised until middle school. Once seventh grade hit, his family packed up bags again and settled in Seoul. He met Chanyeol in eighth grade, and figured this is what stability feels like.

Then he moved to New York City for college, and here Kris is, on September 20, 2013, standing in a subway that’s just about to pull into his stop at Canal Street.

When he finally makes it to his his office building, Chanyeol is talking to Amy Lee, the girl at the reception desk, with a grin on his face. Amy has a matching grin, and Kris mumbles a broken hello as he slips past them both and into the elevator.

What was that he was reading on his phone again? Right, the Olympics.

When Kris was a junior in high school, the winter Olympics were in 2002, held in Salt Lake City. Kris didn’t know who to cheer for, but Chanyeol sure did, so he stayed put in Chanyeol’s house after hagwon and cheered for athletes Kris didn’t really know or care about. But Chanyeol has always had enough enthusiasm for two people, and even then, he made you want to be a third person. So Kris cheered when Choi Eunkwang won the gold, and yelled when Lee Kyuhyun didn’t reach the finals.

It wasn’t the ideal life, but it was good, and Kris liked good.

 

The rest of the week progressed slowly, and day by day, Kris could see Chanyeol and his slowly ever growing group of friends. Amy was the first, then it was Peniel, and then there were people that Kris didn’t even know the names of that would chat him up after work. Any time Kris wanted to spare to talk to Chanyeol were shafted, and instead of waiting around, he decided to start leaving earlier.

 

Then Friday came, along with a text message.

_(*^▽^*) Yifan!!!!!!! Take me to Ktown!!!!!!!! I wanna see!!!!! KOREA!!_

Despite himself, Kris laughs. It’s almost too easy to see Chanyeol with his eyes aflame like they were back turning the Olympics as he cheered for Eunkwang to run faster, _faster, faster, fasterfasterfaster._

_Shouldn’t you call me hyung?_

It’s almost time to leave the office, and Kris still at least three more reports to look over. Today is a no-go, he thinks. His phone vibrates again.

_(*^▽^*) Yifan hyung!!!!!!! Take me to Ktown!!!!!!!! I wanna see!!!!! KOREA!!_

This brat.

He punches in a quick message with his address and time before before shutting off his phone and opening a file.

 

Chanyeol, in fact, comes exactly on time, which is surprising because Chanyeol is _never_ on time. Rather, he was never on time in high school.

“Is this the famous Wu Yifan’s apartment?” Chanyeol asks cheekily as he steps into Kris’ apartment. He’s forgone the suit and tie for a simple t-shirt and jeans, and Kris marvels at how much younger he looks, especially with his thick-rimmed glasses.

“Kris,” he says, shutting the door gently. “Yifan isn’t my name anymore.”

“I bet your mom thinks that too,” Chanyeol retorts, toeing off his shoes in the doorway. “Speaking of her, show me this guest room that Lu Han’s been telling me all about.”

Kris groans. “I thought you wanted to see Ktown, not my apartment.”

“Kill two birds with one stone,” he sing songs, walking past him and into the living room. “You have an _upstairs_?”

“It’s a townhouse,” Kris explains as Chanyeol stumbles up the staircase. “Not exactly a flat.”

“This is _awesome_!” Chanyeol yells from upstairs. Kris hopes his neighbors aren’t in. “I haven’t had an upstairs since high school. You have two bedrooms! _Two!_ ”

“The other room is completely empty right now. I used to have a flatmate, but she got married two years ago.”

Chanyeol comes running back down the stairs. “What was her name? What did she look like, was she pretty?”

Kris sighs as Chanyeol slides past him. “Her name is Nicole, and her picture is in the living room. She got married to a guy named Dominic.”

“She’s pretty,” Chanyeol says, and comes back to the front door, where Kris is, and has been, waiting for him. “Is she Spanish?”

“Puerto Rican.”

Chanyeol purses his lips. “Cool.”

Kris sighs and shakes his head. “C’mon, let’s go.”

 

They run into the school girls on the subway, which startles both sides, and Kris tries to act like he doesn’t know who each of them are by name now and leads Chanyeol away by the arm. (“You are such a Korean drama protagonist,” Chanyeol says, laughing, and Kris glowers in response. Somewhere behind him he can hear Sonia and Angela giggling.)

They get out of the subway at Herald Square, and Kris takes him down 32nd Street, where the row of small shops and restaurants with hangul written along the sides awaits them.

“Ta-dah,” Kris says, with a lame flourish of his hands. “Ktown.”

It isn’t much, really. It’s barely one full block, with bright hangul signs piling on top of each other like it’s a competition, and maybe it is, who knows, but Chanyeol’s eyes light up like serendibite, and his grin is so wide Kris thinks it might outstretch his face. “Let’s go,” he says, and doesn’t wait for Kris to follow him.

He walks into the first store to catch his eye, which is a small cafe, and Chanyeol excitedly chatters with the barista in Korean. He orders chrysanthemum tea and pulls Kris out of the cafe and down the street.

Chanyeol looks so happy he might just burst into tears. “We need to go to noraebang,” Chanyeol demands, and Kris doesn’t argue. “And we need to eat at each of these places.”

“Every single one?”

“Every single one.”

Kris laughs and steers Chanyeol in the direction of restaurant across the street, near Fifth Avenue. “Let’s start with this one, then.”

Chanyeol talks to the waitress much more than necessary just to speak in Korean, which Kris doesn’t get, because really, _they’ve_ been talking in Korean this whole time and it didn’t matter.

“It’s far from home,” Chanyeol says about half an hour later, when he flips over a piece of galbi to cook. “But it’s good enough. I can live with it.”

“Live with what?”

Chanyeol looks at him. “Ktown.”

Kris watches him place a piece of garlic on top of the grill, and then it suddenly hits him. And then he just feels stupid, because how could he not have known? How could Kris, who experienced the same feelings and turmoil, not known? It makes sense, the way Chanyeol’s eyes glitter when he reaches over the menu and orders soju and claps along to the newest girl group song humming over the restaurant.

Kris isn’t buzzed, and if he isn’t, Chanyeol is probably still perfectly sober (a fact he really hates to admit), as they leave, but when Chanyeol turns around one more time to look down the street, where the flashing lights blink and stutter, and the sound of a homeless man a couple of yards behind them plays an out of tune guitar, he starts to cry.

“I miss Korea,” he hiccups, and a few passerbys walk around him, as if there isn’t a grown man crying in the middle of Manhattan, as if he doesn’t even exist at all. “I miss home so much.”

 

Kris has never had a sense of “home.” Kris’ heart has been divided and divided and divided again, beyond land borders and across oceans and tongues and manners. His body is an open wound, the presence of New York like alcohol — kills all the germs, but burns and leaves you with a scar.

He ushers Chanyeol into the subway, wraps an arm around his shoulder and brings him in close to his chest, and hopes that Chanyeol can find himself again.

 

Chanyeol cries silently. He doesn’t sob, and he isn’t sniffling or trembling, but his face is ghostly pale and his hands are cold to touch when Kris holds them.

Chanyeol’s flat is closer, but Kris brings him to his own apartment anyway. After forcing him to brush his teeth and change into a spare pair of shorts and t-shirt Kris has laying around, he sets him down in his bed and throws the comforter over him. It’s been a long day, he thinks, and moves to grab a blanket from the closet so he can crash on the couch, but Chanyeol’s hand on his arm stops him. “Stay,” he pleads, and Kris doesn’t even know if he thinks it through before he crawls under the blankets with Chanyeol.

“Do you remember when we were younger?” Kris asks, eyeing the way Chanyeol drags his thumb over the bony part of Kris’ wrist. It’s probably meant to comfort himself, but Kris likes the way his fingers are warm and soft. “When we’d sleep over at each other’s house?”

Chanyeol laughs. “Your mom used to always set up a futon for you to sleep on, but we’d just squeeze onto the bed and push each other off.”

“That bed was tiny,” Kris sighs. “The futon was even smaller.”

“My sister used to make jokes,” he says, “‘look Chanyeol, you’ve got a boyfriend who can cuddle you to his chest’.”

Kris laughs. He knows that, besides him, Yura was the person Chanyeol confided in the most. And he assumes that after he left for America, that once shared position became full-time for her. “Does your sister know you’re bi?”

“Of course. She was the first to know.”

Kris hums. He thinks about the concept of home. There’s China, and the warmth it settles in his bones when he thinks about the blinking lights of coffee shops and the doorman with the missing tooth Kris used to always be scared of. There’s a lonely sort of sense of home, the one he’ll always have but not exactly once he think he belongs to. China is something out of a dream for Kris, the haziness of Cantonese slipping off his tongue like water off a cliff.

Then there’s Canada, and the out of body feeling that comes along with it. Canada isn’t daunting anymore, but back when English was as difficult as any other language other than Cantonese or Mandarin, and he couldn’t hide his long-limbed, bony body behind his mother, the skyscrapers of Vancouver and overheard rumbling of the Skytrain nearly left him in in a mixture of anticipation and awe every day. That’s where he picked up basketball, and that, he thinks, may have been the best decision of his life.

Dribbling a basketball did wonders to his ever rising anxiety, which only increased when Seoul became his new home. Home in Seoul lies with Chanyeol in their high school in Apgujeong, somewhere in between the street vendor who would always tell Kris to stop growing, and Chanyeol to see if he wanted to date her daughter.

There is always a piece of Kris that will belong to each and every body of land his foot steps on. But now, in this moment, in the comfort of his bed and the radiating warmth of the grown man beside him, Kris feels like home is right here.

“That song,” Chanyeol brings him out of his thoughts, “that’s an old song.”

“Oh,” Kris says, not exactly sure what he was humming. “Is it?”

“H.O.T,” Chanyeol confirms. “We _loved_ Candy.”

Kris laughs. “Who didn’t love Candy? Who _doesn’t_ love Candy?”

“Song of the century,” Chanyeol agrees. “We need to sing that when we go to noraebang.”

“And,” Kris says, voice reprimanding, “we need to sleep. Because it’s two in the morning.”

“ _Now it’s three in the morning, and I’m trying to change your mind—_ ”

“Stop.”

Chanyeol grins on him and flops on his back, hand leaving Kris’. He feels a little selfish for wanting it back on his, but figures that this is also a sign that Chanyeol is better now. Or as better someone who’s homesick can be. For now, at least. “ _Why do you always call me when you’re high?_ ”

“I hate that song.”

“I’m going to keep this in mind,” Chanyeol sing-songs, and Kris groans.

“Sleep.”

“Whatever you say, Yifan.”

 

Chanyeol goes back to his apartment the next day, and Kris spends the rest of the day at a small house party at Tiffany’s flat. He sleeps in his bed alone, and tries not to think about how nice it would be to sleep with Chanyeol again.

 

Work rears its ugly head when Soojung comes in on Tuesday with a stack of papers thicker than Kris’ grande caramel macchiato. Even she looks apologetic when they make a thudding sound as they land on his desk. “There’s not a lot of good response to one of the new TV shows,” she explains. “Especially after there was a translation error on one of the Korean documentaries.”

“Thank you,” he says stiffly, eyeing the pile like it might poison him if he touches it. He wouldn’t put it past the Data Retractor team. “I might need another drink to get me through the day.”

Soojung laughs. “Send me a message when you need it.”

And that’s how Kris gets sucked down the black hole of nonstop calls and business conferences and reports. He doesn’t get to see Chanyeol for another three weeks, and when he does, he seems to be even more glowing than before, but Kris knows better than to fall for a facade.

 

“I never asked,” Kris says as they ride the E train to Chanyeol’s apartment, “How long is your transfer here for?”

“Hm? It’s permanent.”

“Oh,” Kris mumbles. “That’s... that must be scary.”

Chanyeol shrugs. He smiles a bit, and looks down at his phone. The clock reads 2:53. “It was. But it’s not that bad now. I still miss Korea, but that’s okay. You’re here, and that’s pretty nice.”

Kris is a twenty eight year old man and god dammit he is _not_ blushing.

“I mean,” Chanyeol says, looking wistful, “it’s still hard. My mom called yesterday and I just— One minute I was laughing about something Amy said, and then I was sitting on the floor and crying about how much I wanted to eat her sundubu jjigae again. But I can deal with it, I think.”

Kris nods thoughtfully, and wonders if he’s supposed to comfort Chanyeol now. He wants to. “Well. I’m here when you need me. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol mumbles, then smiles. “Yeah.”

 

“So, I might like someone,” Kris says three days later, in a small Mexican restaurant on 14th Street. It’s not Kris’ ideal choice of place, but since Amber lives so close to NYU, coming down so often doesn’t feel that bad.

“Really?” Amber asks. “What happened to, whathisname, Rohit, or something?”

Kris sighs and pours himself a glass of water. “That was last year. You’re the worst, it’s not like I even have that many men in my life.”

Amber shrugs. “One’s enough for me.”

“Because you’re gross and Henry is that much more gross,” Kris whines. “Are you gonna listen to me or not?”

“I’m always listening to you,” Amber says. “Bad habits are the hardest to get rid of.”

Kris stabs a piece of meat with his fork. Someone sitting at the next table over glares at him, and Kris thinks he wasn’t supposed to eat it like that. He shrugs. He’s well versed in the art of chopsticks, not fork and knife and tortilla wrap. “Did Henry use that pick up line on you?”

Amber rolls her eyes, which means that yes, he did, and Kris laughs. “So who is your new eye candy?”

Kris hesitates. “Uh. He’s not exactly _eye candy_ , since he’s um, my friend. My best friend, actually.”

“Dude, you know Minseok and Lu Han are like, a thing, right? Like... they’ve been together for at least four years now.”

“Lu Han’s not my best friend!” Kris whines. “He’s a close friend I happen to see the most often. I’m talking about Chanyeol, my friend from high school who moved here from Korea.”

“Oh!” she says, smiling. “Him. Henry told me a bit about him. Something about what Lu Han told him, or something like that. It was a big game of telephone that probably didn’t end well.”

“Chanyeol’s bi. He told me the first time we went out together, actually. Probably because we were both drunk,” Kris rambles. “And nothing ends well with Henry.”

“That’s my, uh, boyfriend, you’re talking about.”

“That was an awkward pause. Don’t tell me you’ve broken up.”

Amber hesitates for the first time that whole night, and Kris’ wonders if he’s gonna have to beat anyone up. He’s never had a younger sister before, and his cousins had always been older than him, but Amber seems like the next best option.

“Henry proposed to me!” she squeaks.

Kris stares at her blankly.

“I said yes,” she mumbles.

He is _so_ going to beat Henry up.

 

He remembers Yura’s wedding, in his senior year of high school. It was also the first day he realized he was gay.

Realize is a bit of an overstatement. Yura’s wedding was the first time he came to terms with the fact he was gay. He remembers standing on Chanyeol’s right side, away from the stage, and wondering what it would be like to kiss that cute boy in the far back, who he later learned was one of Chanyeol’s cousins.

He remembers Yura walking down the aisle in her white gown, with gold trimming and flowers embroidered around the waistline, veil low on her face. He remembers watching her husband-to-be crying as she walked forward, the smile on his face as he lifted the veil and leaned in to kiss her. It was magical, and then Kris was stuck in place, heart frozen in his chest as he thought about the wedding he would never be able to have.

 

Now, nearly a decade later, Kris knows he has the option to choose whoever he wants to spend the rest of his life with, but he won’t ever forget the feeling of dread that overcame him.

And now Amber’s getting married, which is a weird thought, because he also remembers when she walked into his room on an unnaturally hot day in September and introduced herself to him and his roommate. And then they stared, because what is this random girl wearing a tanktop and basketball shorts doing in their room? But then they introduced themselves back, and that is somewhere on the top of the list of the best things Kris has done in his lifetime.

 

“Dude,” Kris says, barging into Minseok’s office, entirely unsurprised to see Lu Han sitting on the edge of his desk. He’s surprised to see Chanyeol there, though. “Did you hear that Amber’s getting married?”

Lu Han grins at him as Minseok laughs. “We were there.”

“You were _what_?”

“It was in Union Square,” Lu Han says, looking at his nails. “Actually, we didn’t go with them. We just happened to stumble by.”

“Also I live, like, right there,” Minseok says. Chanyeol mutters something like _rich bastard_ under his breath.

Kris ignores him. “Do you know when the wedding’s going to be?”

“Not for a couple months, hopefully.”

Minseok grins. “Hopefully? You mean - about time, huh? They’ve been dating since sophomore year of college, right?”

“Yeah,” Kris breathes out. “About time.”

Lu Han grins from where he’s sitting next to Minseok, arm wrapped around his waist. “Never thought they’d be the first to actually get married though,” he says. “Figured maybe Seohyun and Kyuhyun. Or maybe Hakim and Lindsey.”

“It’s always the ones you least expect,” Chanyeol points out.

Lu Han raises an eyebrow. “Have you even met either of those two?”

Chanyeol beams, and Kris really doesn’t like that. “Amber and I like to have Shit-Talk-About-Kris sessions. She dropped by once, and we got each other’s numbers!”

Lu Han opens his mouth to retort, but stops when he sees the look on Kris’ face, and Kris figures it must be something really embarrassing, because Minseok and Lu Han are practically doubling over in laughter.

Kris can think of at least a million things to say. What do you guys say about me? When did she come here? Why are so you good at this type of thing? Do you guys really have Shit-Talk-About-Kris sessions? Instead, he settles on: “How do you make friends so easily?”

“Well, the first step would be to not have your face.”

Minseok and Lu han grin like they know exactly what Chanyeol’s talking about, but Kris stares at them with a blank look. What’s wrong with his face? He’s been told it’s a rather nice one, actually.

“Here,” Chanyeol says as he steps forward, “let me show you what I mean.” And then his fingers are digging uncomfortably into Kris’ cheeks, pulling them upwards, and somewhere in the background he can hear Minseok spluttering and Lu Han howling with laughter.

It _hurts_ , and tugging might give him premature wrinkles, but mainly it hurts, and Kris smacks away Chanyeol’s hands moodily. “Don’t touch my face.”

“This is what I mean,” Chanyeol replies, wiping his hands on his sacks. “I wouldn’t go near you if I didn’t know who you were with your face all twisted like that.”

Kris scowls. His face is _not_ twisted.

“You’re so lucky I know how lame you really are,” Chanyeol continues. “Like when I first met you when you were walking out of the girl’s bathroom—”

“The signs were in _hangul_ —”

“There were pictures!”

Minseok nudges Lu Han in the side. “They look like an old married couple.”

“I want to know more about how embarrassing Kris is,” Lu Han sniffs.

“The point being,” Chanyeol finally settles on, “You always look like you've seen your mortal enemy and are brooding about your angsty life.”

“Angsty Main Character Syndrome,” Lu Han quips happily. “Someone who understands me.”

They high five, much to Kris’ dismay.

 

Soojung laughs when she comes in with Kris’ schedule for the day. “Are you in a bad mood?”

“I’m always in a bad mood.”

“No,” she says, “You always just pretend you’re in a bad mood. To scare away the new interns.”

“Does it work?”

She hums for a bit, watching Kris twirl his pen around his fingers. Chanyeol taught him how to do that, in their sophomore year. Well. They learned together, and it ended up with a lot of writing utensils flying all over the classroom. “Only the ones who don’t know better,” she finally settles on. “Do you want your regular coffee?”

“Yes, please,” he mumbles.

 

"Let's do something," Chanyeol asks, a week later in the back of a Korean bar. "Something fun."

“Sure. Doing what?”

“Let’s watch a movie,” Chanyeol smiles, but there’s an edge to smile that Kris recognizes from many years ago.

“What’s the catch?” he asks around the rim of his glass.

“There’s no catch,” Chanyeol says, but his lips purse in that same way it did years ago when Chanyeol tried to surprise Kris for his birthday. It didn’t work. “It’s just a movie.”

Kris waits.

“A Korean movie.”

Kris waits more.

“We have to go to Flushing to see it.”

He looks out the window to see the rain beating against the glass of the window. Outside, there’s a woman whose umbrella is blowing in on itself, and she stumbles across the sidewalk in her heels. He turns back to Chanyeol, who’s giving him a shit-eating grin. “Can we go when it’s not storming?”

“But it’s really late,” Chanyeol complains. “It goes out of theatre in a week, and it rains for the whole week. We might as well go since we’re already out.”

Kris is going to say no. He’s going to say no. He’s going to say no. He’s going to—

“Fine,” Kris mumbles, heaving an overly dramatic sigh. He’ll get Chanyeol back for this, somehow. Maybe he’ll make him get him coffee everyday, or switch jobs for a day, though actually, he’s not sure if he trusts Chanyeol with that one. “Why do I do these things with you?” Kris asks himself. Chanyeol answers anyway.

“Because I’m your cute little _didi_ that you would do anything for.”

Kris is twenty eight, AKA way too old to be rolling his eyes. He does it anyway. “Talking in Chinese doesn’t win you any brownie points.”

“Oh, I already won the brownie points in advance. I was just finally giving you your consolation prize,” Chanyeol says as the waitress gives them back the check. “You’re totally lying if you say my puppy eyes have never had an effect on you.”

“It’s because you look pitiful.”

Chanyeol shrugs as he pockets his credit card. "Doesn't matter if I get what I want."

"So you're pitiful and shameless," Kris says as they make their way to the door. "Are you serious about this?"

"Dead serious." Chanyeol's smile wavers when there's a crack of thunder in the distance, but in that same this-is-such-a-bad-idea-let's-do-it-anyway way he used to do back in high school when he managed to rope Kris into going to that Fin.K.L concert that one time. Chanyeol spent all of the next day gushing about how Lee Hyori _totally waved at him, I can hear the wedding bells already_ , and Kris stared at his grade in in their recent algebra test and mumbled, _She probably waved you goodbye_.

 

This is how Kris finds himself in the middle of Queens, watching the most standard office romance story he's ever seen, with his suit jacket completely soaked through and blonde hair disheveled and dripping water. "I hate you," he tells Chanyeol coming out of the movie theater. "I hate you so much. You owe me so much for that; it wasn't even a good movie."

"Yeah, but Shin Sekyung was so hot."

"She's half your age."

"She's only twenty! It's just a six year difference."

Kris groans as he shucks his suit jacket over his head. "I'm going to hail a taxi and you're going to pay for all of it because this is your fault."

Chanyeol shrugs. "I'll just use the company card and say we were discussing business."

"You're awful."

“But pretty genius,” Chanyeol says with a grin, and Kris really wants to smack him because it’s _pouring_ and Kris’ white dress shirt is soaked through and god dammit he feels really exposed right now, and why does Chanyeol not care at all? He’s been trying to ignore how he can see dusty pink nipples and the faint outline of Chanyeol’s abs through his soaked dress shirt. It’s really distracting.

“No, just pretty awful. And there, look, taxi coming— Is he really going to drive us all the way back to Manhattan?”

Chanyeol waves his hand and the car pulls up to the curb. “One way to find out. What address do I give?”

“Mine,” Kris mumbles gruffly. There’s no way he’s going to go to Chanyeol’s apartment just to go back to his own at three in the morning, as curious as he is to see what Chanyeol’s place looks like when not nursing a terrible hangover.

“Hop in,” Chanyeol says as he opens the door. “We’re good to go.”

“You’re still paying,” Kris reminds him as he gets in.

 

Chanyeol’s fingers tap the rhythm to a new electronica song Kris hears often on the radio, and though that in itself isn’t very distracting, it’s the fact that Kris has been staring at those fingers for the past fifteen minutes.

They’re big, though not as big as Kris’, and his fingers aren’t as long and slender like Yixing’s, but they’re got this boyish charm to them that Kris likes a lot.

He’s hit with the sudden realization again that he really, really likes Chanyeol a lot.

His conversation with Amber had gotten cut short with the news of her engagement, so he’s never really gotten the time to think it out, but now that he’s here, with nothing to distract him and Chanyeol barely an arm’s length away from him, he lets the emotions swirl around him like a flurry of feathers.

It feels really stupid, actually. It’s like he’s back in high school and telling Chanyeol all about that girl who sat behind him in History and asking Chanyeol about how to ask her out. Chanyeol would hit him on the head and say _You’re the captain of the basketball team, dumbass, why are you thinking about this so hard?_

The problem was that he _wasn’t_ thinking. The shaky pit-a-pat in his chest was dizzying enough to block out all other logic, and in the end, she went out with Taekwoon, the quiet kid with the high-pitched voice who sat in the corner of the classroom.

It feels a bit like that now, except this time he’s not Wu Yifan, sophomore in high school, head over heels for a girl he’s never talked to before. This time he’s Kris Wu, a twenty eight year old living in Manhattan, in love with his best childhood friend. The weird pit-a-pat shouldn’t feel so much stronger, shouldn’t be this dizzying, but it is.

“You’ve been staring at my hand for the past twenty minutes, are you okay?”

He’s pulled out of his reverie by Chanyeol, who has this stupid smug look on his face, like he knows what Kris was thinking, except Kris has seen that look many times before, and it’s his default I-Don’t-Know-What’s-Happening-But-This-Face-Makes-Me-Look-Like-I-Do expression.

“I was thinking about those stupid fingerless gloves you used to wear. D’you remember those?”

“Oh god,” Chanyeol mumbles. “I used to think those were cool, okay.”

“That’s not even your worst fashion error,” Kris says, smug. “Remember that time you crimped your hair?”

“That was my girlfriend’s idea,” Chanyeol sniffs. “I am free of charge there.”

Kris laughs. “You _kept_ it. For a whole two weeks.”

“We dated for a grand total three weeks, shut up.”

The taxi pulls up to the side of the street in front of Kris’ apartment building, and Kris climbs out moodily so Chanyeol can pay. The rain is lighter now, but that doesn’t really matter since Kris is still dripping wet, and his shirt is still see through, and his pants are still clinging to his legs like an uncomfortable, second skin. “Come on,” he calls out to Chanyeol, who hasn’t moved.

“What?”

“You’re not coming in?” Kris asks, noting the way Chanyeol’s eyes go wide and his lips part slightly. Chanyeol’s always had really nice lips, but it’s only now that Kris wants to press his own against them.

“Oh. Didn’t know I was supposed to,” Chanyeol says, opening the door. “Right, guess I’m not going to Greenwich then. Keep the change.”

When Chanyeol comes around the taxi, Kris raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you usually really stingy about money?”

Chanyeol shrugs as they approach the door and Kris digs through his pocket for the key. “I am, but it was like forty-something cents in change.”

 

“You know we’re both going to get sick, right?” Kris calls out once they step into the warmth of his apartment. “And it’s all going to be your fault. I hope you can’t sleep tonight.”

“For what reasons am I not sleeping?” Chanyeol says with a grin and a really unattractive waggle of his eyebrows.

“For reasons of me choking you,” Kris groans as he heads to the bedroom while unbuttoning his shirt. Fuck it, who cares if Chanyeol is right there; it’s gross and sticky and damp.

“One of my ex-boyfriends used to be into that,” Chanyeol sing-songs. Then, “Whoa. You have a tattoo? Since when?”

“Hm? Oh yeah, I have two,” Kris comments offhandedly as he peels the fabric off of his body. Chanyeol’s looking at the scorpion on his arm, so he turns to give him a better view of the one on the upper part of his chest, a little below his collarbones.

“Do they mean anything?” Chanyeol asks, stepping a bit closer. He looks like he wants to touch them, and honestly, Kris doesn’t think he’d mind that.

“This one is just because I’m a Scorpio,” Kris says, pointing to the one on his bicep. “And this one...” he says, pointing to small “Courage” on his chest, “is because every time I moved somewhere new, my mom would always tell me to be courageous. It’s her favorite word.”

“Wow,” Chanyeol breathes, hand automatically coming up to trace the letters. He hopes Chanyeol doesn’t notice his sharp intake of breath, because even though his hand is ice cold against Kris’ body, the physical contact sends an electrifying zap through his veins. “Even _I_ don’t have a tattoo. It looks good.”

“Thanks?” Kris laughs, but Chanyeol’s hand stays there, and he’s still staring at Kris’ chest, deep in thought. He waits, unsure of what Chanyeol’s going to do, but when he doesn’t do anything, he whispers his name in question, and Chanyeol jumps.

“Sorry,” Chanyeol says hastily, flushing. “I was thinking about something. Anyway, uh, do you mind if I take a shower?”

“Uh, sure?” Kris asks more than he says, and watches Chanyeol scramble off to the bathroom.

He was definitely blushing, and Chanyeol _never_ blushes. Not even when he had to serenade Minyoung, the underclassman who definitely had more balls than the entire class of 3-A put together. Actually that’s how he’d gotten her number. He stares at the empty spot where Chanyeol was standing until there’s a shout from the direction of the bathroom that sounds very much like, “ _Wu Yifan!_ What the hell are all these?”

 

When he gets to the bathroom, Chanyeol is stripped down to his boxers and staring at his various hair products. “I have no idea what the hell any of this means,” he says. “Ten years later, and you are still just as high maintenance.”

“It’s not that difficult,” Kris mutters. “That’s shampoo, that’s conditioner, that’s a treatment for dyed hair, that’s—”

“Right, shampoo, that’s all I needed to know.”

Kris sighs. “Let me know when you’re done so I can brush my teeth.”

Chanyeol gives him a ridiculous look. “Just brush your teeth. I’m shameless, remember?”

“Fine,” Kris says, but shakes his head in exasperation. He turns around, and by the time he’s gotten the toothbrush in his mouth, he hears a small splash of water from behind him and a pleasant sigh.

“I’m going to use up all your hot water,” Chanyeol calls, and even at ass o’clock, Kris finds it in himself to roll his eyes.

“Why are you taking a bath?” he asks around the foamy toothbrush.

“Because I can’t remember the last time I took a bath. And your bathtub is _huge_. Rich bastard.”

“You live in _Greenwich_.”

Chanyeol waves him away. “It’s on lease from the company for a year. I have to find somewhere else to move in that time.”

“Found anywhere yet? How much time do you have left?”

“Nope, and about nine months, I think? I came here in June or July.”

“It’s the beginning of October, so... Wow,” Kris says, after spitting out foam. “You’ve been here for almost four months.”

Chanyeol grins. “Weird, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like I’m a real New Yorker, taking the subway to work and having my lunches in fancy coffee shops, but at other times I just want to go back to Seoul and eat spicy ddeokbokki from the street vendors. I still stay up on the weekends to watch Music Core.”

Kris hums before he rinses his mouth. “The feeling never really goes away,” he admits. “I still want to go back to China sometimes. Even Canada and Korea. It’s like you belong everywhere but nowhere at the same time.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I would have stayed this long if it weren’t for you.” Kris hears the catch in Chanyeol’s breath before he breathes, “Courage. I need some more of that.”

Kris turns around to look at Chanyeol, awkward lanky limbs stretched out in the bathtub that’s big, yet too small for his long body. “Nah,” he says. The white of the tub draws some of the color of the room, and thought Kris has been living here for a good five years, the homeliness is sucked right out of it. “I think you’re pretty good.”

Chanyeol gives him an appreciative smile, one with teeth and weird smushy eyes that makes his heart go all chaotic in his ribcage. Kris thinks he knows where all the homeliness went. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he mumbles. “I’m gonna, uh, get you clothes to change into. I”ll... be back?”

By the time Kris gets back with a spare change of pajamas and a towel, because who knows how much of a mess Chanyeol is gonna make, Chanyeol’s gotten at least a fourth of the tub’s water onto the floor and is fighting with the cap of his shampoo bottle. “What are you _doing_?”

Chanyeol freezes and drops the bottle, and it sinks past the water’s surface with a plop. “What the hell’s wrong with your shampoo?”

“What the hell’s wrong with you? You just push the cap down and turn it.”

“Like a _medicine bottle_?” Chanyeol reaches down and picks up the bottle before giving it a suspicious stare. “What kind of weird shampoo do you use?”

He lets Chanyeol gives it two test tries before Kris groans and sets the clothes and towel down on the countertop. “Yes, like a medicine bottle. Give it here, I’ll open it.”

Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Yes, mother.”

“I might as well wash your hair while I’m at it.”

"Please do; less work for me." Chanyeol lets his head roll back against the edge of the tub, and Kris sighs.

"You're so useless," he says, but kneels down next to Chanyeol anyway. "The last time I washed anyone's hair was when I was in elementary school and it was okay to bathe together."

Chanyeol wrinkles his nose. "Never even with a girlfriend?"

"Not even with any of my boyfriends," Kris corrects as he twists the cap open. "None of my relationships ever lasted that long."

Kris runs his hands through Chanyeol's hair, who hums absentmindedly. Chanyeol's scalp is wet and cold under his fingers, but he sort of likes it regardless. Kris has always liked being in charge, being able to tell people what to do and how to do things. Even though Chanyeol is made up of a good six feet of obnoxious and brat, he still feels like silly putty beneath Kris. He scratches lightly at Chanyeol's nape and grimaces when Chanyeol starts to snicker.

"What, are you ticklish?"

"No," Chanyeol says, still snickering. "It's not that, it's just— Have you ever considered getting your hands checked? Because those are not normal."

Kris rolls his eyes.

So maybe not as pliant as Kris would like, but he slides his hands down to Chanyeol's neck and wraps his hands around them, smirking at Chanyeol's snicker. "I'm going to choke you."

"That's not really my thing," Chanyeol says, craning his head back to look Kris in the eye, "but I can always make adjustments if you play into my likes."

"And those are?"

Chanyeol grins bright at him again. "Well, I personally think you'd look _perfect_ in a maid's outfiblurbfhdslafd—-"

Kris makes sure he has his most obnoxious smile on his face as he presses down on Chanyeol's shoulders and shoves him under the water surface.

When Chanyeol comes back up for air, he glares at Kris once before shaking his head and splashing water all over. "You asshole."

"You deserved it," Kris bites back, flinching when Chanyeol tries to splash him.

"I'm going to flush all your weird hair products down the drain," Chanyeol threatens. "And then I'm going to tell Lu Han about all your weird high school moments. Like the time you thought you were supposed to eat crackers when you have heartburn."

"That was exactly what the translation said, you can't blame me," Kris snaps. "You read it too. And you _are_ supposed to eat crackers, stupid."

Chanyeol splashes him again, getting his pants all wet, and honestly at this point he might as well just take those off, too. He’s hit with an odd out-of-body feeling, along with the realization that _what is he doing_ , he’s shirtless with wet pants with his naked best friend in a bathtub, and what the fuck? How is that even vaguely normal? He’s proud of himself for not having looked at Chanyeol’s dick yet.

“Stupid, who was the one who thought that rapping for the talent show in junior year was a good idea?” Chanyeol splashes him again. There probably isn’t any water left in the tub. “You’re lucky you’re so good looking no one bothered to listen to your voice.”

“Why are you bringing up the past?” Kris half-yells, trying to block his face. He’s going to smother Chanyeol in his sleep tonight.

“You brought it up first!” Chanyeol retorts, cupping his hands in the tub and making sure he gets Kris’ face this time. He does.

Kris splutters, and Chanyeol revels in victory for a few seconds before Kris reaches his hands out and Chanyeol ducks.

“Who’s the one trying to strangle a naked dude in their tub, huh?”

“Who’s the grown ass man who had to ask someone to shampoo their hair because they couldn’t open the bottle?”

“You _offered_ , crazy fuck!”

“What the hell are we doing?” Kris asks, and Chanyeol stops moving, and the water falls out of his palm and back into the tub.

The silence the stretches across feels much longer than the few seconds it really is. Chanyeol’s hands are frozen midair in some kind of limbo, and Kris thinks he can hear his heart beating in his chest.

Then Chanyeol’s right eyebrow twitches, and it, _this_ is just so ridiculous it’s all they need to burst out into laughter.

“You crazy piece of shit,” Chanyeol wheezes. “You’re literally having an argument with a naked dude in your bathtub.”

“You _are_ the naked dude in the bathtub,” Kris hisses. “Why are we — why is this a conversation we’re having? Go shower or something instead of getting water all over the floor.”

“Where the hell is the shower?”

“Right here,” Kris grumbles, reaching over to pull on the lever, and that is probably somewhere high on the list of Bad Idea Kris Has Had, because without the shower curtain, the water sprays all over the floor and on himself.

“You— _dumbfuck_ ,” Chanyeol shouts. “Now who’s getting water all over the floor?”

This is by far one of the weirdest bathroom endeavors Kris has ever had, and that includes the time one of his exes tried to lift him onto the counter for bathroom sex but couldn’t pick him up.

“You might as well just take off your pants and get in,” Chanyeol says. “Or you’re gonna have an awesome water bill to pay off.”

Kris rolls his eyes. Water bill, okay. “Only because you asked so nicely.”

“I didn’t.”

“It’s probably the best I’m going to get,” Kris mumbles as he takes off his belt.

Chanyeol grins. “Oh, Yifan. You know me so well.”

He steps into the tub and slides the curtain shut, letting the warm water spill over his shoulders and down his back. Chanyeol stands up as well, and Kris isn’t exactly sure how two six feet dudes fit in the shower, but they do.

Chanyeol and Kris stumble into bed somewhere after 3AM, and the last thing Kris hears before he falls asleep is, “We are so fucked for work tomorrow.”

 

This is Chanyeol’s fault. It’s Chanyeols fault, because everything is Chanyeol’s fault, because they’re going to be forty minutes late for work at this rate, and this would be the second time this week he’s late. Kris’ fucking electronic razor isn’t fucking working, Chanyeol brushes his teeth like he has rabies, and someone changed Kris’ alarm tone to Baby Got Back. He’s already got shaving cream on his face though, god dammit. Maybe if Kris slams the razor on the counter, it’ll start working.

“Dude,” Chanyeol says, now looking like Santa Claus, “a razor is a razor. You don’t need the battery to work.”

“But it _should_ work,” Kris groans. “Don’t talk with your mouth full of toothpaste.”

“Yes, mother,” Chanyeol slurs as he bends down over the sink and spits. Kris wrinkles his nose. He’d almost forgotten how shamelessly disgusting Chanyeol can be. Kris fiddles with his razor for a moment more before it’s taken out of his hands by a clean faced Chanyeol. “Let me show you how normal people shave.”

“You’re going to cut my face off,” Kris hisses, but Chanyeol ignores him and presses him up against the wall.

“Shut up and let me do the work,” Chanyeol snaps, and Kris would say something, really, but the razor is way too close to his face and he doesn’t trust Chanyeol at all.

In fact, this is probably the least yet most domestic moment he’s had with anyone, and Chanyeol’s not even his boyfriend, as much as Kris likes him.

He can feel the cool press of the razor against his face, and then nothing. Chanyeol works calmly and meticulously, and the silence in the bathroom is eerily contrasting with the pounding of his heart.

“You’re quiet,” Chanyeol murmurs, way too close too close to his ear, and Kris wants to reply _you’re pressing a razor into my face_ , but he doesn’t, because, well, Chanyeol’s pressing a razor to his face.

Shaving takes a grand total of three minutes, and even when Chanyeol washes the razor in the sink, Kris keeps himself plastered to the wall, trying to ignore how Chanyeol has three more eyelashes in his left eye than in his right, and fuck, that’s _really_ creepy. Almost as creepy as the time Chanyeol thought a good way to ask a girl out would be to tell her how many times he’d seen her walking her dog that month, which wouldn’t have been that creepy if they lived in the same neighborhood.

“We’re going to be like an hour late,” Chanyeol says after he’s finished, and it’s then that Kris looks at the time.

“Oh god,” he groans. “This is all your fault.”

 

Lu Han comes in with a cup of coffee and a question: “Okay, Mr. Wu, what’s the story?”

Kris is going to faceplant right into his report, that’s what. Because Park fucking Chanyeol had to see a movie all the way in Flushing at ass o’clock.

“Oh,” says a voice trailing behind Lu Han, “he has a little crush on Chanyeol, that’s the story.”

“How do you know that?” Kris asks. He doesn’t really want to kill Minseok, but when Minseok gives the most mocking shrug of innocence he figures that he might just have to.

“It was obvious. Also you sleep texted me at like four in the morning. I thought you were drunk at first, but it was a Wednesday night.”

Kris wants to fall onto the floor and never get up. He doesn’t remember anything after the shower, which, now that he thinks about it, was pretty weird. So was this morning. Everything about Chanyeol is pretty weird. “Don’t talk to me about anything, I haven’t finished my coffee.”

“One day,” Lu Han sing songs as Minseok ushers him out of the door, “I’m going to get you a _smoothie_. It’ll be passion fruit. I’m going to make it as sugary as your soul.”

 

The next two weeks are spent in and out of the office, with little run-ins with Chanyeol and a few other friends. On Monday, he meets up with a few college friends; Tuesday, he sits in his pajamas and watches reruns of _Lost_ ; Wednesday he sits with Amber in a boring wedding dress shop and helps her pick out the best wedding dress, and is _still_ more enthusiastic about it than her; and then on Thursday, he and Chanyeol continue their Ktown escapades, the H-mart edition, and Kris has to help Chanyeol carry back at least six bags worth of groceries back to his apartment.

Kris lingers at the door, like he should say something, _anything_ regarding this little crush that’s not really a crush anymore, but instead he blurts out, “Come clubbing with me and Lu Han tonight.”

 

“You know I never turn down an opportunity to get shitfaced with my boyfriend,” Lu Han says, “but is that literally all you could think of?”

Kris shrugs and picks up a shirt. “How is this?”

Minseok winces. “It’s too I-fucked-your-sister-last-night-and-I’m-coming-back-for-round-two-ish.” Kris and Lu Han share a glance.

“How the hell do you classify shirts?” Kris asks, but drops the piece of article like it burns anyway.

“Maybe you should just tape hundred dollar bills to your chest,” Lu Han says. “What better way to say ‘Look! I’m rich and have lots of money, also I’m in love with Park Chanyeol!’”

Kris’ friends are useless.

 

Chanyeol’s wearing a plain black v-neck that makes him look like a college student all over again. Or, well, that’s what Kris assumes Chanyeol looked like back in college. It’s a nice look.

“Remember how last time you got really drunk and I had to take you home?” Chanyeol says, “Well, this time it’s gonna be me.”

 _I didn’t get that drunk_ , Kris wants to say, but Chanyeol’s already downed a shot and is ordering two more.

 

If Kris is a hazard on the dance floor, then Chanyeol is a danger to himself and everyone around him. Add in some alcohol, and you have him with his arm wrapped around Kris’ waist trying to move to the beat and stand up at the same time.

“I think now’s a great time to sit down,” Kris says.

“I think,” Chanyeol slurs, tipping forward dangerously, “I think we need to talk. And dance. I want to dance. I’m gonna dance!”

Kris tries to pull him away from the dance floor, but he’s surprisingly hard to move despite being drunk. Not that Kris hasn’t had any drinks, but he’s made sure to be level-headed enough to drag Chanyeol home. “No more dancing. We can talk sitting down,” he says.

“No,” Chanyeol snaps, hand sliding from Kris’ waist to his wrist. “If we’re gonna talk, we’re going to talk, right here. Right here, because... Because—”

“Because?” Kris echoes, because if Chanyeol’s not gonna budge, then maybe he can speed up this whole process by a lot and get them home safely. He can spot Minseok and Lu Han dancing together in the corner of his eye, and decides it’s better not to get them involved. “Because what?”

“Because _that_ ,” Chanyeol snaps. He lets go of Kris’ wrist and opts to jab him in the chest instead. “That stupid thing you do with your face. And your mouth. Where you have lips and shit. And they _move_. Attractively.”

“Uh.” Kris doesn’t really know how to deal with drunk people who talk about their obsession with his face.

“It’s stupid, because at least if you were unattractive I could get over you faster.”

“Wait, what?” Kris doesn’t think he heard that right. “Chanyeol, wait—”

“I’ve already had to get over you once, back in high school,” Chanyeol rants, “and now I have to do it again? I don’t want to do it again. I just—”

“Chanyeol,” Kris cuts in, hands coming up to cup his face. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to get over me again.”

Kris can see the little gears turning in Chanyeol’s head as he processes his words. “I don’t?”

“No,” Kris mumbles, leaning in close. Chanyeol’s got these bright, watery eyes and soft lips that he really wants to kiss. “No you don’t.”

It’s Chanyeol who grips Kris’ shoulder and presses their lips together. It's Kris who opens Chanyeol's mouth with small nips and licks, and it's Kris who presses Chanyeol flush against his body and licks his way into Chanyeol's mouth.

There’s a lot of different ways Kris wants to kiss Chanyeol, but right now, as Chanyeol grips onto his shirt sleeves way too tight and wobbles forward, he thinks that it can wait a bit. “Let’s go home,” he says against Chanyeol’s lips.

“‘dunwanna,” Chanyeol whines, and digs his head into Kris’ shoulder when he tries to drag them away from the dance floor.

“Yes, you do,” Kris says. “We can continue this at home, okay?”

He takes the weird grunt-y sound Chanyeol makes as an affirmative to drag him out of the club and hail the nearest taxi. The whole ride back to Kris’ apartment, Chanyeol leans in too close and drags his hand up Kris’ thigh, and it’s all very distracting, but his breath smells like alcohol and he can’t sit still, so when they finally get back, Kris makes him sit on the kitchen stool and drink bottles of water until Chanyeol complains of wanting to throw up, then drags them both into bed.

 

“I’m gonna die,” Chanyeol groans over a plate of microwave pizza. “Who the fuck let me drink that much?”

“Pretty sure it was you,” Kris says over the pounding of his own head. He didn’t even get that drunk, what the hell. “Save me some, okay? I’m gonna get the mail.”

The lady in the escalator shoots him a mix of a suspicious and a sympathetic glance when he bangs his head on the wall in an attempt to alleviate his headache. “Are you okay?” she asks, out of politeness.

“Rough night,” he groans.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and gets off at the next floor. He doesn’t think she meant to go to that floor.

The rest of the way down is plagued with the thoughts of _Oh God does Chanyeol remember what happened last night?_ and then _Oh my God I kissed Chanyeol last night_ and _What the fuck I wasn’t even that drunk_.

Mail is mundane and boring until he spots a tiny red envelope on the bottom of the stack. Curiosity gets the better of him and he opens it in the elevator.

 

“You are cordially invited to the wedding of Amber Liu and Henry Lau on December 10,” Kris reads as he steps back into his apartment.

“That’s in like three weeks, isn’t it?” Chanyeol calls from the kitchen. “I think I got an invitation, too.”

“Red envelope?” Kris asks. He throws the rest of the mail on the counter to deal with later.

“Yup.”

“I’m almost offended I’m not the best man.”

“Almost?”

Kris shrugs. “I’m pretty sure it’s Kyuhyun, so it doesn’t matter.”

Chanyeol nods and goes back to his pizza. They don’t talk about last night.

 

Kris thinks Chanyeol doesn’t actually remember what happened that night, until a week later Chanyeol barges into his office while Soojung is going over his meeting tomorrow and demands that they need to talk.

“Um,” Kris says, exchanging glances with Soojung, “Can it wait?”

“No, because this is important. Like, actual important. Not There’s-A-New-Video-Game-Coming-Out important. Though that’s pretty important too.”

Kris raises an eyebrow and motions for Soojung to leave the room.

“What’s up?” he asks, standing up when the door closes behind her. Chanyeol’s fists are clenched, and he’s biting on his bottom lip, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He looks really silly.

“We need to talk.”

“We are talking.”

“About last week. When we went clubbing.”

“Oh.”

Oh, indeed.

“I just...” Chanyeol exhales noisily, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The things I said. I figured I’d just come clean and say that those weren’t drunk thoughts. They were, but I mean. I meant those things. I like you.”

It’s very undramatic, contrary to what Lu Han thinks his life is like. “I wasn’t even drunk, so I don’t have an excuse. I meant what I said, too.”

“Oh.” Chanyeol blinks. “So, uh. Does that mean that we’re like... a thing?”

Kris takes a quick glance at the clock. It’s been two minutes. He has some time to spare, still. “Do you want to be a thing?”

Chanyeol laughs, like this is the most ridiculous thing ever. It probably is. “Yeah. Let’s... do that.”

Kris grins. “Alright then,” and then he pulls Chanyeol in close by the hips and presses their lips together.

“We should both be working,” Chanyeol says.

“Yeah,” Kris agrees. “But I don’t care.”

And if Kris doesn’t care, Chanyeol really doesn’t give a fuck.

 

Kris doesn’t look any different than he does at work, but everyone compliments him on his choice of suit anyway.

“Did you guys really have to match?” Kyuhyun asks. “The whole black and white thing, don’t tell me you guys didn’t plan that, because you did.”

“We actually didn’t,” Chanyeol says, looking down at his own white suit. “We just thought it was funny and made some adjustments to actually match. Like Kris’ black tie and my white one.

“Don’t they look like Thing One and Thing Two, though?” a female voice says from behind them.

“Amber!” Kris grins, engulfing her in a bone-crushing hug. “Congratulations; you look amazing.”

She smiles up at him. “If the bride’s side had a Best Man, you would’ve been that. But there isn’t.”

“You look gorgeous!” Chanyeol coos. “How long did Kris have to sit with you to pick out that dress? And where’s your boytoy?”

“She’s not even wearing the dress I chose.”

“You have awful ideas,” Kyuhyun says, “I wouldn’t trust your decisions either.”

Kris sniffs. He was the one who introduced Henry to Amber, so clearly his decisions are the better kind. Speaking of Henry—

“You guys came!” Henry calls, grinning from ear to ear. Kris doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so happy before, and Henry is a really cheery guy. He replaces Kris’ previous position and hugs Amber, arm lingering around her waist. She rolls her eyes.

“I actually didn’t plan to come,” Chanyeol says, “since I secretly hate you all. Or actually maybe I’m just here to sabotage the wedding.”

Henry gasps. “Is that why the flower decorations are peonies and not myrtles?”

“Exactly,” Chanyeol laughs. “Just wait until you see the honeymoon car. It’s a Cadillac, not a Mercedes.”

“You sick bastard,” Henry teases.

“There’s a camera right there,” Kris says, laughing. “Don’t curse.”

Henry shrugs. “It’s my own wedding tape.”

“Picture!” Chanyeol says, and imitates Amber’s groan. “It’s your wedding, come on.”

The cameraman takes a picture of them together and moves on, except Chanyeol elbows Kris in the elbow after. “What?”

“Take a picture with my phone!”

He groans. “They literally just took a picture of us.”

“Yeah, but I want my own copy.”

Kyuhyun laughs. “In that case, we have to do one with mine, too.”

Kris groans as he grabs the two phones and takes a few steps back. “I’m not going to give you your phones back,” he says.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes and shoves his hands in his pocket, turning his body a little next to Amber, who has her own arm wrapped around Henry’s waist, who’s doing the same thing back to her. On the other side, Kyuhyun’s got his arms at his sides, small smile on his lips.

His focus is mainly on Chanyeol, though, as he snaps the pictures. Stupid, weird Chanyeol who makes them all do funny poses for the next picture. His tongue is out, eyes crossed, and bending awkwardly at the knee below Amber, and it’s just so stupid and endearing that Kris’ heart goes ba-dump in his chest.

He feels like he’s watching an artist painting a picture, except there’s not actually an artist. The canvas sprouts its own colors of blues and greens and cyans and magentas, each one splashing over the other like they’re fighting for the spotlight.

And just like them, Kris wants to place his hands on the top of the canvas and drag it downwards, taking all the wet paint with him and leaving pristine white in its wake.

And maybe he wants to wipe his hands on his face with the paint, just so he can have a little bit of Chanyeol, like how he wants Chanyeol to have almost all of him.

After the picture is taken, they all go their own separate ways, Henry and Amber to greet other people, and Kyuhyun probably to get away from them. Chanyeol picks up a glass of champagne the nearby table and hands it to Kris.

“Move in with me,” he says, suddenly, and Chanyeol blinks in confusion, glass held between them awkwardly.

“What?”

“Um,” Kris mumbles, less sure now. “You should. Move in with me? You said that a while ago — your apartment is on lease from the company, and you haven’t found a new apartment yet. Its been like half a year or something already, right?”

Chanyeyol stares at him for a while longer, before he laughs. “You don’t have to make excuses. We can talk about it later,” he says, and Kris deflates for a bit. Chanyeol snickers over the rim of his glass and takes Kris’ hand in his own. “But for now, my answer is yes.”

Kris’ smile is almost as bright as Chanyeol’s.

 

“You are so fucking _lazy_ ,” Chanyeol groans, which Kris thinks is kind of hypocritical, since right after Chanyeol says that he slumps on top of a box and starts mumbling into the cardboard.

“It’s not my stuff,” Kris retorts, too preoccupied with his Xbox.

“You’re stupid and mean and I hate you,” Chanyeol huffs, rolling onto the floor. “I’m not getting up.”

“Those were some effective elementary school insults,” Kris says, placing his controller on the couch. “Get off the floor.”

“No. You suck.”

Chanyeol’s hair has grown out, and now it hides his stupid, endearingly big ears and is almost reaching his eyes. Kris loves his stupid, endearingly big ears and eyes, though.

He heaves a sigh and gets up from where he’s sitting and walks to Chanyeol’s sprawled body and over his torso, bending down so he’s hovering over Chanyeol’s waist. “You suck more.”

“No, _you_ do. You suck so much I’m gonna pack up all my things again and move back to Korea.”

Kris snorts, placing his index and middle finger on Chanyeol’s stomach. “You haven’t even unpacked. Half your shit is still outside.”

Chanyeol watches Kris walk his fingers up his torso to his chest, lightly scratching into the fabric between his pectorals. His eyes are hooded, mouth parting slightly, and Kris grins.

“Even easier,” Chanyeol replies, half distracted as Kris’ fingers trace their way up his neck, “I can just get on the next flight to, ah, Korea—”

Kris grips his chin and leans in close enough to feel Chanyeol’s breath on his own lips. “You’re not just gonna _leave_ me, are you? For the second time, too.”

“You left the first ti—”

Chanyeol has a nice voice, Kris admits, but he likes it better when their mouths are sliding against each other, hot and wet on the floor of Kris’ apartment.

Scratch that. Kris and Chanyeol’s apartment.

Chanyeol sucks on his tongue fervently as Kris’ hand slides up Chanyeol’s shirt, tracing the faint outline of his abs. He feels Chanyeol pull away, soft breathes hitting his nose, and looks Kris in the eye.

“ _You’re_ ,” Chanyeol gasps, leaning away from Kris’ face, and laughs breathlessly when Kris tries to follow, “You’re not leaving again. As your best friend and boyfriend, I demand it. Okay?”

Kris’ heart is beating wildly in his ribcage, determined to explode and set off the rest of his body tingling with tiny firecrackers.

“Okay,” Kris says, smiling into Chanyeol’s cheek. “Okay.”


End file.
